I am a watercolour visual artist and instructor living and working in Victoria, BC, Canada. This medium was introduced to me after a period of ill health, and since has developed into a passion.Please visit often and follow me.

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Monday, September 23, 2013

Harvest Green Stage 2

The next steps are to add hue and value. The colours need to intensified and the values do too. Highlights are preserved using masque, and shadows need to be added using a darker blue grey hue, or the compliment. The correct values will provide dimension and depth to the piece.

Step 1 Refer to the reference image to determine shadow areas in the grapes and the leaf. I added french ultramarine blue (FUB) to the shadows.

Step 2. Adding more colour to the bottle: Again, using the reference, I needed to intensify the value on the bottle to give it shape. I wanted to preserve the luminosity, so I worked wet-in-wet with transparent colours. Transparent pigment is critical because opaque hues will result in a muddy appearance when layered. Opaques tend to lift a bit when you glaze over top of them, mixing the pigments resulting in mud.

I added Pthalo Green, and Alizron, to make a richer dark, for the dark areas, and using the cool yellow on the upper shoulder and a mixture of Pthalo and Cool yellow to make the chartreuse on the lower shoulder. The pigment was applied in a slightly value. Keeping it transparent. Do not go too dark too quickly.
Once the value was close, I lifted out a small section next to the grapes (using a scrubby brush, Simply Simmons, 1/8 to 1/4 chisel; these brushes are firm yet soft, and are perfect for lifting out pigment without damaging the fine art paper). Let dry before adding more pigment. over the darker areas.

Step 3 Painting the wine glass, and the leaf behind the glass: I used the same mixtures to make the chartreuse and a few different values of greens, and using the reference as my guide, built up the values, and masking in-between layers to preserve the highlights or in some cases painting around the highlights.

Step 4 Grape Stems: I layered colour beginning with yellow. Let dry, and add, Burnt Sienna, and while that is wet, add a richer dark on the underside, and let it bleed up. make sure to preserve the highlight by masking or lifting out after it is dry.

Step 5 Leaf: I removed the mask and put a wash of yellow over the entire leaf. let dry.
Mixing up a greyed down midtone bluegreen, using Pthalo, FUB, and a touch of Alizron, I negative painted the spaces between the veins.

Step 6 The stem of the glass: I removed the masque and worked with the reference to build up the values that give the stem depth and roundness. I did not try and make every mark as it appears in the reference photo. Instead I built up the mid tones and added a few details at the end with a darker hue.

It's getting very close now. I take a photo of the painting and look at it on the computer...this helps me to see the areas that are glaringly wrong and subtle changes that can be made to make the painting better. I start on the far left, and compare my painting to the reference photo to ensure the values are correct. Be careful not to overcompensate, photos can be misleading in the shadows, and end up too dark.

About Me

I am a fine art watercolourist and instructor living and working in Victoria, BC. Born in Fredericton New Brunswick in 1960, Sam Boehner moved to the west coast in 1992. After finishing a degree in Biology at the University of Victoria and a long career in fisheries management Sam began painting in late 2007. This new-found passion was a way into self-discovery and relaxation.